


A still applause

by Petra



Category: Ashes to Ashes
Genre: Breathplay, M/M, Non Consensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-13
Updated: 2010-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the witching hour, and none of Hunt's lackeys are likely to come in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A still applause

**Author's Note:**

> Breathplay for Kink Bingo. Pre-read by [](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**thatyourefuse**](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/) and [](http://d-generate-girl.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**d_generate_girl**](http://d-generate-girl.dreamwidth.org/).

  
The problem with Gene Hunt is his damned--and Keats uses the word advisedly, even in what passes for the privacy of his own mind--self-confidence, ninety-three percent of which is based on self-delusion. It makes him a right infuriating bastard at the best of times and a terrible colleague at the worst of them.

Someday Keats will be assigned to research the sources of Hunt's weaknesses: Gardner, Whatley, Tyler, Drake, and report on them in detail to his superiors. He's looking forward to that day.

That might be enough to break Hunt's facade once and for all, remove his power, and allow Keats to institute a better program to replace the cobbled-together one that Hunt jury-rigged out of his own bathetic misery, once upon a decade.

Until he has all the keys, and not just the keys' names, what Keats has at his disposal are Drake and her investigative instincts, the poor souls that Hunt's been keeping too close to him for too long, and his own cunning and intuition. With tools like those, the power is on his side.

The best part of Hunt's bravado is that he never sees the trouble coming before it's in his face, or if he sees it coming he stands there like a gunfighter ready to draw and waits for it. The image makes Keats smile to himself, reluctantly admiring the strength of the man's illusions if nothing else.

On the other hand, the failure to plan makes Hunt simple to take down from behind when he has been drinking--drinking! as if that is a tonic to anyone but the whiskey manufacturers, here--and wrap an arm around his neck, getting him pinned against his desk with an arm up his back. "Admit it," Keats says in his ear. "You know who you are."

"Fuck you," Hunt mouths, his breath cut off and his face already going red. Redder, thanks to all that whiskey.

It's a Boy's Own Adventure novel in here and no mistake. There will be skinned knees if Keats lets this mess go on, or scrumping apples out of the Queen's orchards. Red-nosed alcoholism is meant to be endearing, perhaps, but it fails on every count with the wrong man watching.

"Come now," Keats says, keeping his voice low. It's the witching hour, and none of Hunt's lackeys are likely to come in, but if he raises a commotion something might give. Someone higher up might notice. "You do know, deep in that pit of despair you call a heart. If you didn't know, you'd let it all go to pot, and you've done such a good job of keeping your little department in order, all these years. You and your never aging DCs, never quite earning those promotions."

Hunt struggles and Keats squeezes harder, testing his resolve. Watching him fight for his semblance of life is delicious; he is so certain of so many terribly false truths. "How do you do it? How do you stay so damned young--no, that's the wrong question, isn't it? How do you keep them so young over the decades, Gene? So young, so naive, so dependent on their good Guv for all the answers in the world?"

Hunt is going blue in the lips, but he manages to land an elbow in Keats's stomach with his next convulsion. Ever the strong man, exceeding all expectations, and in a just and proper world, that blow would've winded his opponent and made him loosen his grip.

There is a crack up the wall of Hunt's office that was not there the first time Keats saw the place. The lion's den is not so strong as it was, and Keats can--will--must beard him in it. Pain thresholds are only meaningful when the body matters. It matters to Hunt, but Keats is not his to command, and pain is nothing in this moment.

"Tell me who you are," Keats says, and gives him a breath, enough to answer if he will.

"Gene bloody Hunt, you tosser--"

But if he won't cooperate, he doesn't need the air. "Do you want to die like this?" Keats asks, and takes another elbow to the stomach for his troubles before he gets Hunt helpless again. "So ignominious, Gene. But if you insist, it can be arranged." Possibly. At any rate, it's worth bending the rules to try.

Another fraction of a breath, and all Hunt says is, "Fuck off."

Keats doesn't like being angry, not without a proper target for his rage, but Hunt is fast becoming one. There is no particular point in having a heart, here, but Keats's is racing, his pulse fast in his ears and his groin. The more time he spends in Hunt's CID, the more he becomes like him, and there is no better reason to despise him than that. "What is your damned problem? Let your people go, you bastard."

Hunt can barely move, but his purpling crimson scowl makes his opinion of that clear.

"I'll make you pay," Keats promises, his voice soft as knives, and it's anyone's guess whether Hunt can hear him. That's not one of the great Guv's powers, so far as he knows. "You'll lose them all, like you've lost all the rest--your precious Gardner, sweet-faced incisive Whatley, and that martyr of a Tyler--and then you'll lose yourself."

His first impulse when Hunt goes limp is to drop him, but there's no telling what that would lead to. He hangs on another few moments, then lets go as slowly as he can, keeping his hands in a defensive posture. For all he doesn't have to feel the pain, he can still wind up thrown across the room.

CID still has that much strength, even with its lord and master unconscious on his desk. It's a strength based on lies, but also on pure, unadulterated machismo. This time, Hunt will wake up with a pounding headache, knowing he's lost a battle, suspecting he might lose a war.

Keats surveys the scene longer than it perhaps warrants. The sweetness of the moment, the way his hands shake with the aftermath, and the mad human vulnerability of his erection make him laugh at himself, and at Hunt. This moment is an incomplete victory, but it's his, more than the roaring surge of the blood in his theoretical body.

He'll have to be more cautious the next time, now that Hunt knows there's something he wants. But there are ways and means of breaking a man, especially one whose very soul is made of the refusal to bend.


End file.
